Notification Center To Land In Windows Phone Soon

                        Yeah,I know that at this moment ,WP 8 doesn't have a notification center but that doesn't mean that it will never have a notification center.


At the BUILD conference yesterday, Microsoft’s program manager Thomas Fennel said:

“Because we ran out of time. It’s very very important to me… we get tons of feedback from developers that they want something like that as well. I promise we’re thinking very very hard on that one.”

As we know that it was Android who first introduced the notification center,and iOS soon after that basically copied that whole that thing , bringing a few modifications.I just hope that the WP edition doesn't become a copycat.Well,let's hope for the best!

Microsoft Sued For Its Live Tiles

The patent breakage lawsuit originates from SurfCast, an OS development company based in Portland, which owns a patent granted in 2004 pertaining to a “System and method for simultaneous display of multiple information sources.” Just from that title alone, it would sound like SurfCast could sue over just about anything from Google News to Hootsuite. Of course, the patent itself isn't quite as broad, but still not great. It details a GUI that ”organizes content from a variety of information sources into grid of tiles each of which can refresh its content independently of the others.”

It reminds me of the Live Tiles, though doesn't really look all that much like Live Tiles. But, don't get disheartened Micrsoft fans. Microsoft also holds a patent for Live Tiles, which covers “systems and methods for providing a user interface mobile devices enable data and services available through mobile device to be represented as a set of tiles maintained a display space.” Microsoft's patent was filed back in 2006, but it was rejected in 2009 specifically because of the prior art existing in SurfCast's patent. Microsoft reapplied and the patent was granted in 2011.

               SurfCast names “Windows Phone, Microsoft Surface with the Windows RT Operating System, Microsoft Windows RT, Microsoft Windows 8, Microsoft Windows 8 Pro, and Microsoft Windows 8 Enterprise Operating System” in its suit, but surprisingly leaves out Windows Phone 7/7.5, which has been using this same system for 2 years now, going back to before Microsoft held a patent for the system. The same couldalso be applied to any of the now 120,000 apps that have been submitted to the Windows and Windows Phone Stores, because Microsoft details ways for developers to create Live Tiles, which means each app would be infringing when it is submitted to the store.

In return Microsoft will go to court in order to prove that its method for displaying information in boxes is "unique" compared to the method of displaying information in boxes that was patented by SurfCast.
 

 You can go over to http://www.surfcast.com/ and have a look at their website.

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Angry Birds Roost Exclusively For Lumia Users

Good news for Lumia users.Angry Birds Roost is an exclusive app for Nokia Lumia handsets. But before you get ready to play the latest Angry Birds battle, you need to know one important thing. Angry Birds Roost is actually not a game but is a virtual store where you can buy all things regarding the game. Wanna buy a ringtone or Angry Birds video? This is the place to for those things as well as a holiday gift for the super Angry Birds fan on your list.

You can also catch the latest Angry Birds news direct from developer Rovio. In addition, one cool feature allows you to snap a picture, add your favorite Angry Birds character, and send it to your facebook and twitter fans. This is sure to make your iOS and Android owning friends jealous ! If you own a Nokia Lumia model and just need to know what is going on with the Angry Birds, you can install the app for free .If you want the next Angry Birds game, Angry Birds Star Wars is coming out November 8th.

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Windows Phone 7.8 Features Leaked

Microsoft didn't mention anything about WP 7.8 in its event. Joe Belfiore and co didn’t even announce a date when the update will be released.


                               Whoever is managing the Windows Phone Italia Facebook page seems more talkative, however, and answered a question from a fan, revealing the new features that v7.8 will bring. The response has been deleted since.
The list includes the new homescreen, something called 'Club',  Xbox Music and SmartGlass.
           
                      In case you don't know yet, Windows Phone 7.8 will be released for 7 and 7.5 devices, as the old phones won't get updated to WP8.

Nokia Lumia 820 Up for Sale In UK

                         After Windows Phone 8 was released it is now time for Nokia & Microsoft's other partners to unleash the potential of WP8.The first WP8-powered smartphones should probably be introduced to us in the next week, so it's time we learned the prices
               Carphone Warehouse has released the info about the Nokia Lumia 820 in the UK. The smartphone outlet is offering the device SIM-free for £379.95.

                      Other major UK stores such as Expansys and Phones4UK are taking in pre-orders for the Lumia 829, but they haven't revealed the asking price yet.
                         
                 The device is already on sale in Germany and has started shipping in Europe.

Top Best Finance And Management Apps For Windows Phone

                        After Windows 8 has released and Windows Market has 125,000+ apps,Microsoft is promising a huge boost for its app ecosystem, as more and more people equip themselves with those phones.

So I decided to look into the apps that are available in the Store regarding business and money management.

            There are a few WP-specific apps, while most popular names are also there,which are pretty well made.

1.Pageonce Personal Finance(Free)

          This app automatically organizes your accounts and collect your transactions, help manage your bills and send you real-time notifications – all this from the convenience of your Windows Phone .

Features:

• Bill management on the go

• Monitor credit card transactions

• Check bank account status

• View detailed bill statements

• Review investment portfolios

• Receive account activity alerts and push notifications

• Safe and secure

• Remote data destruct in case you lose your phone

2.Stocks Tile($0.99)

             This app  provides a quick overview of stock quotes and realtime change. It can show charts for different periods as well as detailed stock information and news. Supports live tile updates with push notifications on 5min intervals or more. Up to 4 stocks can be displayed on tile. All stock information is retrieved from Yahoo! Finance.

           

3.Stocks(Free)

       This app helps you to track your favorite stocks and indices right on your Windows Phone. Keep a list or use the "quick search" feature to easily find today's hottest trade. See the latest quotes at a glance, or dive into the details for price/earnings ratio, market cap, volume and more. Want the full picture? Get up-to-the-minute market news with direct feeds from Bing.

4.My Budget($0.99)

         My Budget is an easy solution to balance your accounts, track your expenditure, and manage your money and more. As a personal finance application one can enter receipts, assign each transaction to a category and to an account.

My Budget V2 is rewritten completely to do the following

1. Support multiple accounts.

2. View balances at a glance.

3. Checkbook Registration.

4. Schedule Bills and Transactions with recurrence

5. Track expenses with spending limit

6. Transaction history.

7. Passcode protect

5.Toshi Finance(Free)

          You know Toshl, tight? It is available on almost every major platform, so if you have been already using it, you can just log onto your account from your Windows Phone, and sync your prior info.

The apps offers a great and simple interface, and all bells and whistles for managing a budget with income and expenses. If you want to manage more than one budget, or need more export formats, you'd have to dole out for ToshlPro, though, and that's $20 annually. 

6.Expensify(Free)

          Best things in life are free, and, as users on other platforms know, Expensify is one of the best options to manage your expense reports, complete with receipt scanning, creating a report and emailing it for you. Road warriors will appreciate it.

7.Finance Helper(Free)

           All-in-one income/expenses tracker, including recurring items like bill payments, which can be displayed on a Live Tile as "due soon" or "past due", for example. In addition to loan payments calculator, you also get numerous export options and syncing with Windows 8.

8.myMoney Book($2.99)

         With a great Modern UI interface, and all the necessary options to manage a balanced budget, including backup, myMoney Book should be on the top of every Windows Phone owner's list for a personal finance app. It has an edge in terms of versatile Live Tile display of your content, but one caveat, too - it is paid, to the tune of $2.99.

Lumia 920 Is Fat Says HTC

            HTC called Lumia 920 a fatty on its Facebook page ,comparing it to the HTC 8X and didn't just stop there.They added that Lumia 920 is 20 pennies heavier than its HTC counterpart.

                        The American penny weighs exactly 2.5 grams. So 20 pennies weigh 50 gms, meaning HTC is referring to the 55 g heavier than the WP 8X Lumia 920.

Here’s the picture attached to the post.




                              This rivalry over who’s Microsoft’s favorite started when the HTC Windows Phone 8X and 8S were released as “signature” devices. Nokia’s Head of Marketing Chris Weber took to Twitter to call out HTC as just tactically rebranding their portfolio unlike Nokia, which is “driving an industry-leading smartphone franchise exclusively around Windows Phone”.

NFC Sharing Between Android And Windows Phone

Well good news for both Android as well as Windows Phone users.Well,it seems that it is possible to send things like contacts and web page URLs through NFC  between an Android device and a Windows Phone 8 device.In tests between a HTC Windows Phone 8X and a Samsung Galaxy Nexus running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean it has been shown that URLs and contacts can be sent between the devices, in both directions. However, using NFC on Android is a little simpler and requires less taps than on Windows Phone 8.




                             It has been a long time since Android supported near field communication (NFC) but it has recently been ported to Windows Phone 8. The new mobile OS from Microsoft has a feature called “Tap + Send” which is available under the “More …” -> Share menu.

Don't get so excited,though.There is a limit on what can be sent between platforms. Using two devices with the same OS it is possible to share photos and videos between phones. But across the Windows – Android divide you get an error saying that large file transfers aren’t supported.

               Although this is all very good news for consumers, its bad news that photos & videos can't be sent.

Samsung Brings Out Ativ Ads

                                       Only a day has passed since Windows phone 8 was launched and today we’re seeing Samsung push out its entire ATIV-branded product family in its latest ad.

               
                     That’s the ATIV Smart PC Pro tablet running full Windows 8, ATIV S Windows Phone launched at IFA and rarely seen ever since, and the ATIV TAB running the stripped-down version of Windows 8 for ARM-CPU-powered tablets, Windows RT.

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Nokia's ESPN App Updated

                                Along with the official launch of Windows Phone 8, Nokia also updated their ESPN app .  The update mainly deals with increasing how you can be notified on scoring and news updates through the Live tile and toast notifications.

                            The update adds the ability to save and pin your favorite teams and sports to your Windows Phone Start Screen, customize the Live Tile score updates and you can now receive toast notifications for news and score updates.



                                   This update allows Nokia ESPN app keep you informed on game day when you might not be able to give the game your undivided attention. The Nokia ESPN app is an exclusive to the Nokia Lumia line of Windows Phones. It is a free app that you can find here at the Windows Phone Store or from the Nokia Collection on your Lumia Windows Phone.

Windows 8 Has Nokia Maps 2.9

The Nokia Lumia 920 is runninng Nokia Maps 2.9.Now,it is possible to update the maps from within the app itself..

Nokia Maps 2.9

                   Nokia Maps on Windows Phone 7.5 has recently introduced the synchronisation options but map performance was not the best. The Nokia Maps running on the Lumia 920 showed superb performance, and didn't have the issues with drawing the map that can sometimes be seen in Windows Phone 7 version.

Downloads

                   Clearly taking full advantage of the underlying “where” platform that Nokia embedded into Windows Phone 8 to enable these features it’s a great example of what we can expect from apps that leverage these abilities. Synchronised favourites combined with offline maps that can also update whilst on Wi-Fi is going to catapult the usefulness of mapping on Windows Phone.

Settings Nokia Maps 2.9

                          If this is final software then its looking compelling indeed and I am really excited  to find what else is in store for the Nokia Exclusives.

Can Windows 8 Make A Difference?

                   This morning in San Francisco, Microsoft unveiled infront of us the latest iteration of its mobile OS- Windows Phone 8.  The new OS features the same minimalistic tile-based user interface we’ve come to know and love from Windows Phone 7, with some tweaks to tile sizes, layout, and animations. Especially once version 7.8 starts rolling out to the masses, it’s not going to be terribly easy to tell Windows Phone builds apart from a distance,since that resizing tiles are gonna come in 7.8

                     Windows Phone market share was still stuck below 4% at the top of October, according to ComScore. The reasons behind Microsoft’s struggle to gain place in the mobile world are many and varied, but a bad user experience isn’t one of them: Windows Phone 7 has garnered more critical praise than almost any mobile platform in memory.

                But another wave of glowing press won’t be enough to force Windows Phone into relevance. Does version 8 bring enough features to cement its position in the mobile world .Lets find out!

                I am gonna break this article into two parts -first why and how WP 8 can make a difference and second -why it can't.So lets get started.

Positive Thinking

                      Microsoft didn’t just demo family-centric features like the earlier versions of Windows. It also gave us some solid figures to get excited about. Figures like app counts: 125,000 in the Windows Marketplace. That’s 25,000 more than the company reported in June. And Microsoft is putting its focus on apps that people need the most. Windows Phone Manager Joe Belfiore’s quote might not be the event’s most elegant, but it’s ambitious and exciting: “We will be at a point where we will have 46 of the top 50 of the most heavily used apps on other platforms.”

             Moreover, big names like Pandora, are coming,which is offering a free one-year premium subscription for buyers of WP8 devices.

            Promotional deals like that put us in mind of marketing, and Microsoft has some big talk in that department. As Windows Phone continues to lag behind other platforms in mind share, Microsoft’s renewed commitment to advertising is heartening, and inspires confidence that it knows where it needs to bring the heat. 

There are many more variables at play in the Windows Phone-vs-the-world equation, and a lot of room in the market for things to go disastrously wrong -or incredibly right- for Microsoft. Whether you believe the most “beautifully different” platform in mobile will succeed or fail in version 8 will of course depend on your own choices, conceptions, and other thoughts .Fortunately, the speculation period won’t last long, because the first Windows Phone 8 devices will launch in Europe this coming weekend. 

Not so positive thinking

               

               Crucial to understanding this argument is to look at where Microsoft put its focus in this morning’s announcement. There was precious little time devoted to blockbuster, competition-crushing features; instead what we got was in-depth explorations of a few new capabilities catering to niche markets. We got to see Jessica Alba tell us all about how Kids Corner lets her rest easy knowing her four-year-old can’t bang out a nonsense-tweet to four million people. Then there is  Data Sense, a (carrier-dependent) collection of utilities devoted to saving money on data costs through smart network use and traffic compression(for those with a modest data plan). Needed,but not something new There was more talk about keeping your contacts synced across all of your devices with SkyDrive.

               Truly speaking,WP 8 is still lagging behind Android.It doesn't support the highest resolution screens,nor does it support full multitasking(which I desperately need).Infact,I was astonished that even in WP 8 they didn't add an option to close an app,the only way was to press the back button continuously until you are out of the app.Also,seriously speaking not many new and important features were added.So yeah it was a bit of gloomy at the end of the day.

                 However,it depends upon you people completely how you welcome this OS.So will you buy a WP 8 phone?

Live Wallpaper In Windows 8

 Yes,you heard that right.There is a chance that WP 8 may bring live wallpapers in the lock screen.
                    Microsoft's Joe Belfiore and the other guys in charge with Windows Phone development did promise more  features to be unveiled at the event today than what was already revealed in the summer.
        
However,it is still a rumour.The image you see above has been sent as an example of this new functionality, which apparently will take some of the default apps, or there live tiles, to be precise, on the lock screen. Pretty good,right? Here,we are seeing the Bing search changing wallpapers as an option, as well as the Sports and News apps getting front and center, with what appears to be live updates directly on your lock screen.
                       Well,if its true then its quite good since one of my friends was reluctant from buying a WP 8 device just because it doesn't have a live wallpaper!What do you people think?

Nokia Lumia 920 Hands-On video

                 
           The Nokia Lumia 920 is not  expected to start selling until November 12th, but Swedish operator 3 Sverige seems to have accidentally put a full hands-on review of the handset on its official YouTube channel.

                  Not just that, 3 Sverige has also leaked out the LG Nexus 4 in a similar hands on video. The video shows the Windows Phone 8 new start menu, music app, browser, and Nokia Drive, and all seem to be perfectly smooth.

                Finally, the reviewer throws in the FatBoy wireless charging pillow and shows just how easy it is to charge the device. However,its camera performance was not shown much.

Here is a link to that video

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Nokia Lumia 822 Is Official

Nokia has just announced the Lumia 822,specifically made for Verizon.The phone comes with features like  the Nokia Drive+ offline navigation with US maps which is pre-installed, the City Lens and Transit apps and several camera apps (Smart Shoot, Cinemagraph, Panorama and Creative Studio).
              The free, no-ads, no-log-in Nokia Music streaming service will be available on the phone too, to make use of that fast 4G LTE connectivity.
.

The phone also comes with different shells,which  can be put on the back of the Lumia 822 to enhance its looks and functionality, including a shell that enables wireless charging.

Reasons To Switch To Android From Windows Phone

Recently I wrote an article about how Apple can "steal" a few customers from Android.Well,that will be a bit too harsh upon Android,I think.But don;'t worry apple fans I am not gonna post the opposite. Obviously,because i think its almost impossible to detach Apple fans from Iphone.So I am gonna post reasons to switch to Android from Windows Phone.

1.Customisation

              One of the things about Windows Phone is that it’s designed not to require heavy tweaking like the old Windows Mobile did. Instead, its customizations are designed to be more automated and content-based.  For example instead of you having to go in and change a background image for a hub or live tile, things change automatically based on what’s going on.  A lot of people still really like all of the power to dig under the hood and change things that other people probably wouldn’t have the time or desire to get into.  This is another big reason why many of the old Windows Mobile users, who loved all the customizations they could do, have switched to Android which offers a similarly high level of manual customization options.  Of course, you don’t have to tweak everything in Android, but then you might get bored with it pretty quickly.

2.More Apps

              This is the gold standard complaint for new operating systems and it’s an especially prevalent mantra for Windows Phone even though in reality Windows Phone may very well support all of the apps you want.  Of course there are instances where it does not, and for those you’ll probably have to switch to a different platform like Android.

3.More Features

           

                                 Android has a lot more “innovative” yet perhaps not so useful features.  If you want to be on the cutting edge of experimental stuff, Android is what you need.  The whole 3D screens and cameras thing didn’t exactly catch on, but Android certainly had it.  Maybe you think it’s cool to move icons around on your screen, by holding your finger on one and then turning your whole body to the left or right.  Maybe you want to launch the camera by turning on your phone, holding a finger on the screen, then holding the phone up vertically and rotating it.  Or maybe you think pressing a button to make a call is for suckers and would rather just hold the phone up to your head to start a call.  There’s so many more of these strange new features coming to Android, where as Windows Phone still keeps things pretty simple and doesn’t add something unless it’s a little more thought-out first.

4.Maturity

                 Well,everyone needs to admit that WP is still quite young,whereas Android is the elder brother.The project butter in Android has made things smoother and faster.So obviously,if you want an OS with experience,Android is your choice.

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